Your Right to Know

The haggling over fire and emergency services for the Jerome Township portion of Tartan Ridge in
Dublin is essentially back to square one.

“We’re going to start from scratch,” Trustee Ronald Rhodes told a gathering last night that
included Dublin and Washington Township officials and a few residents of the development off Jerome
Road.

The sides often disagreed on who told whom what over the years regarding the Jerome portion of
Tartan Ridge, all of which was annexed by Dublin in 2005. Washington Township provides fire and
emergency services to all of Dublin.

Rhodes, the only Jerome Township trustee returning from last year, said he was not always privy
to talks that his former colleagues conducted with Washington Township and Dublin, so he wanted “a
fresh start.”

New Jerome Trustees C.J. Lovejoy and Joe Craft, elected last fall, said they are still getting
up to speed on the issue.

Lovejoy said the trustees have ideas about solving the confusion but won’t comment on them until
they hear back from the attorneys reviewing them.

Rhodes said that could be two weeks.

Rhodes said he’s not inclined to turn the Jerome land over to Washington Township so the latter
can tax residents. Over 30 years of annexation by Dublin, the township has lost about 1,500 acres,
Rhodes said, and “We can’t stand to lose much more.”

Jerome, which also responds to fire calls in the area, is prohibited from taxing residents of
that land because it is in an incorporated city.

Dublin officials said they have agreements with most owners of the 90 parcels in the Jerome
portion to collect fees in the form of twice-yearly easements to pay Washington Township for fire
and emergency services.

City Manager Marsha Grigsby said Dublin would have to transfer 911 calls from residents who don’t
sign the agreement to Union County, which would then transfer them to Jerome. “There will be a
delay in calls that are dispatched,” she said.

Dublin and Washington Township extended a deadline to provide services to the Jerome portion
until the end of February. Grigsby said she would see whether the date could be further extended
because all sides are willing to continue the dialogue.